V 


THE    STUDY    OF    ENGLISH    LITERATURE 
ITS    SCOPE  AND    METHOD. 


AN     A  r    -»     '  B  S  S 


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ALUMiv  OF  B  <  :\VN  UNIVERSITY, 


ie  15,  1886, 


JAMES    O.    MURRAY,    D.  D..    LL.   D.. 
Professoi    of  English  Literature  in   Princeton   College 


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THE    STUDY    OF    ENGLISH     LITERATURE: 
ITS   SCOPE  AND    METHOD. 


AN     ADDRKSS 


BEFORE    THE 


ALUMNI  OF  BROWN  UNIVERSITY, 


June  15,  1886, 


/ 

JAMES   O.    MURRAY,    D.  D.,    LL.  D., 

Professor  of  English  Literature  in  Princeton   College. 


PROVIDENCE: 

PROVIDENCE    PRESS    COMPANY,    PRINTERS. 
1886. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2010  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/studyofenglishliOOmurr 


ADDRESS 


The  occasion  prescribes  the  theme.  We  meet  as  alumni 
of  our  college,  proud  and  grateful  for  her  history,  loyal  to 
her  interests,  and  confident  for  her  future.  We  meet  also  as 
college  men,  members  of  that  larger  and  growing  brother- 
hood of  scholars,  with  the  cause  of  good  learning  at  heart, 
and  scanning  eagerly  every  auspicious  sign  or  boding  portent 
of  the  literary  horizon.  Political  or  social  topics,  however 
strenuously  they  may  challenge  our  attention  as  citizens  or 
men,  have  their  own  occasions.  Nor  is  it  enough  to  meet 
the  demands  of  this  hour  that  the  topic  of  discussion  should 
be  one  of  a  merely  general  literary  importance.  The  air  is 
full  of  debate  on  college  matters  specifically.  The  discussion 
has  taken  on  a  wide  range  :  — whether  students  shall  be  a  self- 
governing  body  ;  whether  compulsory  attendance  on  religious 
exercises  shall  be  maintained ;  how  far  his  own  election  shall 
determine  for  the  student  his  course  of  study ;  how  far  the 
old-time  general  training  shall  give  place  to  special ;  how 
much  or  how  little  knowledge  of  Greek  a  student  may  have 
and  yet  be  in  some  true  and  vital  sense  a  liberally  educated 
man.  Let  us  be  thankful  that  these,  or  similar  questions, 
have  roused  so  persistent  inquiry.  It  is  an  altogether  hopeful 
sign  when  the  public  mind  is  willing  to  occupy  itself  with 
such  themes,  rather  than    surrender  itself  so  completely  to 


petty  political  issues,  or  the  crass  materialism  of  the  market- 
place. 

I  cannot  help,  however,  congratulating  myself  that  while 
the  theme  of  discussion  is  in  close  harmony  with  the  occa- 
sion, and  is  also  responsive  to  the  general  interest  in  educa- 
tional matters,  it  is  one  on  which  no  vehement  controversy 
is  likely  to  arise ;  one  which  appeals  to  friends  of  classical 
and  friends  of  scientific  training;  one  which  touches  the 
higher  intellectual  life  at  many  points.  The  expansion  of 
English  studies  in  all  our  colleges  is  matter  of  familiar  obser- 
vation. The  growth  of  interest  in  them  is  a  plainly  marked 
feature  of  our  times.  Forty  years  ago,  in  all  our  colleges,  they 
were  confined  almost  wholly  to  studies  in  Rhetoric.  English 
Philology,  or  English  Literature,  was  only  an  incident  in 
English  training.  To-day  they  have  a  place  more  or  less 
full  in  every  well-ordered  college  curriculum.  When  Pro- 
fessor Palgrave,  in  his  recent  address  on  assuming  the  chair 
of  Poetry  in  Oxford,  says  "  the  thorough  study  of  English 
literature  as  an  art, —  indeed,  the  finest  of  all  arts, —  is  hope- 
less unless  based  on  equally  thorough  study  of  the  literatures 
of  Greece  and  Rome,"  he  gives  a  true  account  of  its  genesis 
and  method.  And  when,  still  further,  he  adds  that  "  Eng- 
lish literature  calls  loudly  for  full  and  free  recognition  as  one 
of  the  studies  of  an  English  University,"  he  states  what  is 
unquestionably  a  demand  of  all  friends  of  liberal  culture.  I 
propose,  then,  to  discuss  The  Study  of  English  Literature:  its 
Scope  and  Method. 

The  study  of  any  literature,  properly  pursued,  must  involve 
to  a  greater  or  less  extent  a  corresponding  knowledge  of  his- 
tory. Eminently  this  is  true  of  our  English  literature.  For 
the  men  who  created  it  have  not  dwelt  apart  in  a  world  of 
their  own  ;  have  not  been  anchorites  in  caves,  nor  monks 
in  cloisters.  They  have  been  part  of  the  life  surrounding 
them    in  Church  and  in   State.     Their   souls  drank    in   the 


subtler  spirit  of  the  ages  they  lived  in.  Sometimes,  alas  ! 
succumbed  basely  to  it,  but  again,  rose  above  it,  combated 
it,  purified  and  exalted  it.  It  is  true,  doubtless,  that  Spen- 
ser's Fairy  Queen  was  written  in  the  dreary  isolation  of  Kil- 
colman  Castle,  in  the  south  of  Ireland,  far  away  from  the 
court  of  Elizabeth  and  the  stirring  life  of  the  England  of 
that  day.  But  in  this,  an  accident  of  its  production,  the 
great  poem  stands  alone,  and  no  English  heart  of  his  time 
beat  more  high  with  interest  in  the  fortunes  of  England  than 
Edmund  Spenser's,  as  every  page  of  his  poem  shows. 
What  the  great  civic  life  of  England  was  to  William  Shakes- 
peare let  the  splendid  patriotism  of  all  his  English  plays  — 
most  of  all  his  Henry  V. —  testify.  The  world  waited  twenty 
years  for  John  Milton's  Paradise  Lost,  while  he  laid,  as  he 
says,  "his  singing  robes  "  aside  and  wrote  his  tracts  on  lib- 
erty. Even  Wordsworth,  as  numbers  of  his  poems  show, 
living  aloof  from  men  among  the  lakes  and  fells  of  his  Gras- 
mere  and  Rydal  Mount,  never  forgot  that  he  was  a  citizen  of 
England  as  well  as  her  poet  laureate. 

When,  therefore,  ten  years  ago,  Green  published  his  short 
history  of  the  English  people,  and  in  his  preface  announced 
his  purpose  of  treating  literature  as  a  part  of  the  organic  life 
of  the  English  people,  he  was  not  only  constructing  history 
on  new  lines,  he  was  taking  account  of  a  factor  in  English 
civilization  which  had  been  forgotten  or  little  noticed  by 
those  who  had  preceded  him.  "  I  have  preferred,"  he  says, 
"to  pass  lightly  or  briefly  over  the  details  of  foreign  wars  and 
diplomacies,  the  personal  adventures  of  kings  and  nobles,  the 
pomp  of  courts  or  the  intrigues  of  favorites,  and  to  dwell  at 
length  on  the  incidents  of  the  constitutional,  intellectual  and 
social  advance  in  which  we  read  the  history  of  the  nation 
itself."  He  finds  places,  therefore,  conspicuous  and  impres- 
sive, for  "  the  figures  of  the  missionary,  the  poet,  the  printer, 
the  merchant  and  the  philosopher."     This  view  of  history  and 


his  balanced,  finely-wrought  estimate  of  the  great  literary 
names  and  their  works  seem  to  not  a  few  of  our  ripest  schol- 
ars amply  to  have  justified  him  in  "devoting  more  space  to 
Chaucer  than  to  Cressy,  to  Caxton  than  to  the  petty  strife  of 
Yorkish  and  Lancastrian,  in  restoring  to  their  place  among 
the  achievements  of  Englishmen  the  Fairy  Queen  and  the 
Novum  Organum."  It  is  quite  possible  that  he  may  have 
failed  at  times  in  giving  due  importance  to  the  stock  char- 
acters and  events  which  have  asserted  a  prescriptive  right  to 
the  historical  field.  But  he  has  not  erred  in  claiming  for  lit- 
erary men  and  their  works  a  place  high  and  distinct  in  any 
history  which  claims  to  be  a  history  of  the  English  people. 
And  in  the  "  Outlines  of  Universal  History "  by  a  distin- 
guished alumnus  of  this  college,  Professor  Fisher,  of  Yale 
College, —  a  work,  the  marvel  as  well  as  the  admiration  and 
delight  of  scholars, —  the  same  recognition  has  been  given  to 
all  literatures  as  part  of  universal  history,  which  Mr.  Green  has 
given  to  English  literature  as  part  of  the  history  of  the  Eng- 
lish people.  But  Professor  Seeley,  equally  eminent  as  a 
historical  scholar,  and  whose  critical  estimates  in  his  essays  on 
Goethe  and  Milton  show  him  the  master  of  a  profound  liter- 
ary criticism,  has  taken  pains  in  his  work  on  the  "  Expansion 
of  England  "  to  say  :  "  I  consider  that  history  has  to  do  with 
the  State,  that  it  investigates  the  growth  and  changes  of  a 
certain  corporate  society,  which  acts  through  certain  func- 
tionaries and  assemblies.  .  .  .  That  history  is  not  con- 
cerned with  individuals  except  in  the  capacity  of  members 
of  a  State.  That  a  man  in  England  makes  a  scientific  dis- 
covery, or  paints  a  picture,  is  not  in  itself  an  event.  Indi- 
viduals are  important  in  history  in  proportion  not  to  their 
intrinsic  merit,  but  to  their  relation  to  the  State.  .  .  . 
Newton  was  a  greater  man  than  Harley,  yet  it  is  Harley,  not 
Newton,  who  fixes  the  attention  of  the  historian  of  the  reign 
of  Queen  Anne." 


But  such  a  view  of  the   scope  of  English  history  is  far 
too  narrow  —  presents  but  one  side  or  phase  of  that  com- 
plex   life    which    makes    up    history,    omits    what    may   be 
its    nobler   part.     There   is    certainly    wanting   the    higher, 
grander  element  of   national  life,  where  great    captains    or 
statesmen  alone  make  the  history  of  the  people.     In  1605 
occurred  the  Gunpowder  Plot,  and  Guy  Fawkes  passed  from 
obscurity  into  the  history  of  the  English  nation.     In   1605 
appeared    Bacon's   "Advancement  of  Learning,"   heralding, 
like  the  morning  star,  the  dawn  of  the  new  philosophy  in  the 
Novum  Organum,  and  which  carried  the  seeds  of  a  progress 
broader  and  richer  than  the  fleets  of   Frobisher  and  Drake. 
Can  that  be  a  true  view  of  history  which  dwells  on  the  Gun- 
powder Plot  and  omits  notice  of  the  Baconian  philosophy  on 
the  ground  that  the  latter  is  not  an  "event  in  the  history  of 
England  "  ?     It  is  far  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  the  impor- 
tance of  the  history  of  any  nation  is  in  direct   ratio  to  the 
worth  of  its  literature.     The  story  of  any  people  is  scarcely 
worth  writing  except  it  have  one.     Compare  the   history  of 
Germany  since  Martin  Luther  laid  the  foundations  of  her 
noble  literature  in  his  translation  of  the  Bible,  with  all  pre- 
ceding.    The  result  of  such  a  comparison  is  deeply  sugges- 
tive.    What  has  the  history  of  Spain  been  worth  since  her 
great  authors  have  vanished  ?     If  there  is  one  factor  more 
than  any  other  which  can  indicate  the  growth  or  decay  of  the 
national  life,  and  measure  the  worth  of  that  life   as  an  ele- 
ment of  human    progress,  that  factor  is  literature.     "  Clas- 
sical history,"  said   Mr.  Huxley  in    one  of  his   lay  sermons, 
"  is  a  great  section  of  the  palaeontology  of  man  ;  and  I  have 
the    same  respect  for  it  as  for  other  kinds  of  palaeontology ; 
that  is  to  say,  a  respect  for  the  facts  which  it  establishes  as 
for  all  facts,  and  a  still  further  respect  for  it  as  a  preparation 
for  the  discovery  of  a  law  of  progress."     If,  indeed,  classical 
literature  be  shut  out  of   recognition    in    classical    history, 


8 

Mr.  Huxley  may  be  right  in  denominating  classical  history 
as  a  part  of  the  palaeontology  of  man.  But  so  long  as  histo- 
rians like  Grote  or  Mommsen  make  the  great  classical  litera- 
ture a  vital  part  of  their  histories,  this  never  can  be  classified 
as  palaeontology.  If  scientific  nomenclature  must  be  used, 
the  great  classics  will  group  themselves  as  part  of  the  biology 
of  nations,  since  they  are  living  and  not  dead  things.  If 
classical  literature  be  dead,  then  the  world  is  ready  for  some 
new  definition  of  what  life  and  death  are. 

The  student  of  English  literature  must  know  English  his- 
tory in  order  to  appreciate  that   literature,  as  he  must  know 
the  literature  in  order  to  estimate  the  history.     Determined 
by  historic  causes  outside  itself,  this  naturally  divides  into 
historic  periods.     Its  great  divisions  into  Elizabethan,  Res- 
toration, Queen    Anne  and  Victorian  periods,  like  the  con- 
tinents, are  marked  by  peculiar  configurations  and  differing 
characteristics.     The  England  of  Chaucer  and  Langland  is  a 
totally  different   England  from  that  of  Spenser  and  Shakes- 
peare.    The  England  of  the  seventeenth  and  that  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  have  contrasts  which  are  more  powerful  than 
their  resemblances.     No  man  to-day  can  appreciate  the  mar- 
vellous portraitures  in  the  Prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales 
who  is   ignorant  of  the  times  in  which   such  characters  as 
Chaucer's   Knight,  and   Prioress,  and    Monk,   and    Clerk   of 
Oxenford,  and  Wife  of  Bath,  and   Pardoner,  and  Sergeant 
of  Lawe,  had  their  actual  being.     Let   no  one  think  he  has 
taken  in  the  fulness  of  poetic  meaning  in  Spenser's  Fairy 
Queen  who  has  not   sought  to  penetrate  the  allegoric  veil 
which  covers   historical  personages  and  events  then  coloring 
and    shaping  English  history.     There  were  a  false  Duessa 
and  an  Archimago,  an  Ignaro  and  a  Blatant  Beast  in   Eng- 
land then,  and  the  reader   of  the  Fairy  Queen  should  know 
who  and  what  they  were. 

Shakespeare,  we   say,  is    universal.     So   he    is.     But  the 


universal  involves  the  particular,  and  if  the  student  of  Shakes- 
peare does  not  know  the  great  currents  of  English  history 
which  swept  along  in  so  magnificent  volume  and  rushing 
celerity,  bearing  on  them  a  great  national  and  social  and 
religious  life,  there  are  hundreds  of  pregnant  allusions  in  his 
dramas  the  force  of  which  will  never  be  felt.  Until  the  folk- 
lore of  his  time,  as  that  embodies  the  popular  belief  in  a 
fairy-like  or  ghost-like  supernaturalism  is  known,  Shakes- 
peare's dramatic  use  of  the  supernatural  cannot  be  appre- 
ciated. The  Pucks  and  Ariels,  the  witches  in  Macbeth,  the 
ghosts  that  rise  so  awfully  in  Richard  III.  and  Hamlet,  will 
move  across  the  stage  with  far  more  dramatic  power  when 
once  we  have  learned  from  a  study  of  the  Elizabethan 
demonology  how  real  they  all  were  to  the  Englishmen  of  that 
day. 

If  possible,  the  case  is  still  stronger  in  regard  to  the  liter- 
ature of  Queen  Anne's  reign.  Take  its  greatest  names  — 
Swift,  Pope,  Addison.  These  were  all  men  who  lived  with 
what  are  called  the  great  historical  actors  of  the  time.  The 
social  life  of  the  period  is  almost  photographed  in  the  deli- 
cious essays  of  the  "  Spectator,"  so  easy  and  graceful  with 
their  high-bred  tone,  so  pure  and  sincere  in  their  quality,  so 
matchless  in  that  art  of  saying  wise  and  witty  things  in  the 
best  way.  It  looms  up  dark  and  grim  in  the  satires  of  Swift ; 
it  snarls  and  bites  in  the  satires  of  Pope.  But  no  literary 
period  more  needs  the  side-lights  of  history.  We  must  know 
what  the  actual  stage  of  Jeremy  Collier's  day  had  become 
(and  we  can  read  it  in  histories  of  the  time)  before  we  can 
understand  the  justifying  reasons  for  his  bold  and  unanswer- 
able attack  upon  the  theatre.  We  shall  be  too  bitter  censors 
of  Dean  Swift's  terrible  misanthropy  till  we  see  in  the  pam- 
phlets which  mirror  the  times  how  much  cause  he  had  to  de- 
spise the  essential  littleness  and  meanness  to  which  society 


IO 


was  dwarfing  itself,  making  out  of  a  great   and  heroic  age 
what  was  a  very  Liliput,  if  not  a  despicable  Yahoo. 

The  true  scope  of  study  for  any  literature,  and  eminently 
for  that  of  the  English-speaking  race,  will  include,  of  neces- 
sity, its  study  historically.  The  stream  of  authorship  flows 
in  unbroken  current  ever  since  it  started  in  the  sweet,  clear 
fount  of  Chaucer's  poetry,  save  only  as  it  sank  out  of  sight, 
like  fabled  Arethusa,  in  the  dreary  century  and  a  half  after 
his  death.  Its  course  varies,  its  currents  deepen,  it  visits 
different  regions,  it  bears  on  its  broadening  bosom  a  larger 
freightage  of  thought,  it  reflects  more  the  beams  of  a  wester- 
ing sun  than  the  hot  glow  of  an  Orient,  but  the  flow  is  con- 
tinuous. Hence  it  must  be  so  studied  alike  to  completeness  as 
to  thoroughness  of  view.  One  period  affects  another  period  ; 
new  elements  come  in  and  are  absorbed  ;  the  changing  phases 
of  society,  of  learning,  of  religion,  are  all  there,  but  it  is  still 
English  to  the  core  all  its  way  through. 

The  renaissance  in  Italy,  sending  its  new  learning  and  new 
life  across  the  Alps  over  the  channel,  brings  up  literature 
from  what  seemed  a  sad  and  premature  decay.  Colet  and 
Erasmus  are  the  twin  predecessors  of  Edmund  Spenser  and 
William  Shakespeare.  There  is  reaction  as  well  as  action,  as 
when  the  classical  school  of  Pope  succeeds  the  romantic 
school  of  the  Elizabethans,  to  be  soon  and  gloriously  sup- 
planted by  the  more  vital,  deeper  school  of  Burns  and  Words- 
worth. Nothing  is  more  interesting  and  nothing  is  more 
stimulating  than  this  comparative  study  of  literature  when  it 
supplements  and  rounds  out  study  of  the  distinctive  excellence 
each  author  and  each  age  presents.  Indeed,  what  the  study 
needs  more  than  anything  else  at  present  is  the  applica- 
tion to  it  of  the  comparative  method.  It  will  gain  in  breadth  ; 
it  will  lose  nothing  in  specific  and  critical  results.  No  more 
inviting  field  opens  to  the  student  of  English  literature  than 
consideration  of  it  in  relation  to  other  great  literatures.     To 


1 1 

trace  in  turn  what  elements  the  great  classic  authors  have 
contributed  to  it,  is  literary  work  of  the  highest  order. 
"Greece  has  crossed  the  Alps,"  cried  a  Grecian  scholar  in 
exile,  on  hearing  a  translation  of  Thucydides  by  the  German 
Reuchlin.  But  Greece  has  invaded  Britain  as  well  as  Rome. 
She  came  not  as  in  mailed  legions  with  her  Cassars,  but  in  her 
Homer  and  Plato  and  yEschylus.  For  they  are  to  be  traced 
in  Spenser  and  Milton.  Nay,  do  we  not  see  the  faces  of  the 
Greek  poets  as  we  read  some  of  the  choicest  strains  of 
Tennyson  and  Arnold  ?  How  in  turn  Italian,  French  and 
German  literature  have  moulded  the  character  of  differing 
ages  in  the  history  of  our  letters  not  always  to  their  better 
growth,  but  sometimes  enriching  a  native  genius  which  has 
seldom  stooped  to  servile  imitation — all  this  shows  how 
truly  literature  has  its  own  history,  how  necessary  is  its  his- 
toric study.  Lessing  wrote  his  Laocoon  in  1765.  It  woke 
no  response  in  England  then.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  never 
seems  to  have  heard  of  it.  But  at  last  it  moulds  a  new  and 
ample  criticism,  not  only  of  art,  but  also  of  letters,  and 
England  boasts  to-day  instead  of  that  wretched,  destructive 
criticism  of  the  Quarterlies  with  which  this  century  began, 
that  noble  and  accomplished  school  of  English  critics  with 
which  the  century  ends. 

Two  things  are  certainly  secured  where  literature  is  thus 
studied  historically.  First,  what  are  called  minor  authors 
have  at  least  some  recognition.  There  are  minor  poets  as 
there  are  minor  prophets.  But  he  would  have  after  all  a 
meagre  and  partial  view  of  the  real  greatness  of  the  old 
Hebrew  prophet's  office  and  work,  who  only  knew  the  lofty 
poetry  of  Isaiah,  the  glowing  visions  of  Ezekiel,  and  the 
boding  lamentations  of  Jeremiah.  There  is  surely  that  in 
Amos,  the  herdsman  of  Tekoa,  and  in  the  burden  of  Habak- 
kuk,  and  in  the  stirring  outcry  of  Joel,  which  adds  to  ancient 
prophecy  much  of  its  undying  grandeur.     To  these,  too,  the 


12 

word  of  the  Lord  came.  And  so  have  sung  minor  poets,  like 
Herbert  and  Herrick  and  Waller  and  Collins  and  Gray  and 
Cowper.  So  have  written  minor  essayists,  like  the  quaint, 
delightful  Sir  Thomas  Brown,  and  the  equally  quaint  and 
witty  Lamb.  He  knows  not  much  of  the  choicest  in  our  lit- 
erature who  knows  them  not.  For  if  we  have  our  eye  only 
for  the  grandeurs  of  nature,  mountains,  cataracts  and  oceans, 
or  firmaments,  we  lose  the  very  standard  by  which  their  real 
greatness  can  be  compared. 

But,  secondly,  thus  is  secured  that  cardinal  virtue  of  liter- 
ary judgment  —  catholicity  of  spirit.  The  temptation  to  par- 
tisanship in  literature,  as  in  life  generally,  is  strong.  Lit- 
erary partisanship,  like  religious  or  political,  is  apt  to  be 
bitter  and  unjust.  From  the  day  the  young  Athenian  in 
Aristophanes  beat  his  father  for  preferring  yEschylus  to 
Euripides,  or  when  Ben  Jonson  fought  his  literary  battles  in 
his  Poetaster  and  Cynthia's  revels,  to  our  own,  when  Mr. 
Swinburne  and  Mr.  Furnivall  bring  down  literary  controversy 
to  the  level  of  the  hustings,  this  spirit  has  been  rife.  There 
are  too  many  minds  still  who  can  see  everything  in  Shakes- 
peare and  Goethe,  and  nothing  in  Milton  and  Schiller ;  too 
many  who  refuse  any  just  estimate  to  Pope,  who  heap 
unstinted  praise  on  Cowper.  There  is  no  higher  figure  in 
our  literature  than  that  of  William  Wordsworth,  so  derided 
by  the  writers  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  enduring  in  calm 
confidence  the  fire  of  their  unscrupulous  raillery,  and  trusting 
his  work  and  his  fame  to  the  larger  and  better  judgment  of 
the  English  public.  In  his  late  scholarly  work  on  the  literary 
period  between  Shakespeare  and  Pope,  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse 
has  said,  with  great  pertinence  and  force  :  "At  the  present 
clay  it  is  a  great  temptation  to  those  who  have  made  special 
periods  and  segments  of  the  poetic  produce  of  a  nation  their 
peculiar  care,  to  exaggerate  the  value  of  what  they  have 
unearthed.     It  is  human  to  see  exotic  beauties  in  the  weed  we 


13 

ourselves  have  discovered.  But  this  tendency  is  one  to  be 
avoided,  since  it  is  commonly  accompanied  by  an  inability  to 
enjoy  what  is  really  great  in  other  schools  than  that  in  which 
the  education  of  the  taste  has  been  conducted."  From  all 
this  injurious  partisanship,  with  its  narrowness  and  provin- 
cialism, the  study  pursued  historically  will  be  a  shield  and 
buckler.  As  we  see  the  great  structure  of  our  literature  rise 
before  us  from  foundation  to  spire,  it  will  not  only  be  the 
massive  colonnade,  or  the  high  altar,  or  the  vaulted  roof,  which 
will  arrest  our  attention  and  challenge  our  admiration,  but 
now  and  again  we  shall  catch  sight  of  some  graceful  frieze, 
some  bit  of  delicate  but  modest  carving,  some  rich  tracery  of 
far  less  imposing  outline,  which  we  shall  be  glad  to  recognize 
as  not  only  full  of  beauty  in  itself,  but  lending  its  efficient  aid 
to  the  one  grand  sentiment  of  beauty  or  grandeur  which  the 
whole  building  inspires.  We  shall  do  all  the  greater  homage 
to  great  dramatists  when  we  have  learned  to  prize  the  hum- 
bler lyrists.  When  we  have  been  just  to  the  Wordsworths 
and  the  Brownings,  we  shall  be  all  the  better  fitted  to  esti- 
mate at  their  full  value  the  Shelleys  and  the  Byrons. 

The  scope,  however,  of  such  a  study  as  English  literature 
can  only  be  discerned  by  advancing  from  its  merely  historical 
bearings  to  a  consideration  of  principles  underlying  its 
growth.  For  it  is  no  chance  product,  springing  up  here  and 
there  along  the  tracts  of  history  at  random,  blossoming  into 
poetry  in  great  epic  or  dramatic  forms,  ripening  into  great 
histories  or  fictions  but  obeying  no  laws  and  following  no 
lines  of  normal  development.  Cause  and  effect,  supply  and 
demand  are  to  be  seen  as  well  in  the  world  of  literary  achieve- 
ment as  in  the  sphere  of  revolutions  or  political  economies. 
No  greater  service  has  been  rendered  the  cause  of  good  let- 
ters in  recent  days  than  the  philosophical  treatment  which 
has  been  given  to  the  subject.  It  has  revolutionized  the 
whole  method  of  literary  criticism,  has  made  this  not  a  mere 


14 

engine  of  destruction,  but  the  guardian  and  promoter  of  good 
letters  —  itself,  indeed,  some  of  their  finer  fruit.  We  owe  to 
it  the  rise  of  that  cultivated  school  of  English  critics,  such  as 
Shairp  and  Arnold,  and  Dowden  and  Myers,  and  Hutton  and 
Gosse,  and  not  the  least  among  them,  our  own  Lowell,  as 
well  as  that  Continental  school  which  boasts  such  names  as 
St.  Beuve,  and  Taine,  and  Scherer. 

Our  danger  is  in  fact  now  the  opposite  one  —  of  being  too 
philosophical.  When,  as  in  a  recent  book  on  "  Shakespeare 
as  a  Dramatic  Artist,"  we  are  first  urged  to  the  view  that  lit- 
erary criticism  must  take  its  place  among  the  inductive 
sciences,  and  then  find  Shakespeare's  plays  analyzed  and 
methodized  till  they  remind  us  painfully  of  treatises  on  Geol- 
ogy or  Anatomy,  we  say  with  Hamlet  himself,  "  Something 
too  much  of  this."  Between  this  extreme  and  the  earlier, 
which  took  little  or  no  note  of  literature  as  a  growth,  our 
choice  would  be  to  accept  the  simple,  charming  downright 
teachings  of  Sir  Philip  Sydney  in  his  "Defense  of  Poesie," 
which,  innocent  of  philosophy,  defines  the  power  of  the  poet 
as  that  which  "  holdeth  children  from  play,  and  old  men  from 
the  chimney-corner."  Sydney  Smith,  talking  to  a  group  of 
eager  and  fascinated  listeners,  remarked  of  Wordsworth's 
poetry  that  "he  could  not  see  anything  in  it."  "That  may 
be,"  was  the  quick  retort  of  an  accomplished  woman  ;  there 
are  some  things  which  are  spiritually  discerned."  This  test 
of  a  spiritual  discernment  it  is  indeed  needful  to  apply  in  any 
true  philosophy  of  mental  growths.  But  applying  it,  such 
is  not  only  attainable  but  essential. 

It  is  scarcely  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  that  the  literary 
world  hailed  with  great  acclaim  M.  Henri  Taine's  volumes 
on  the  History  of  English  Literature.  His  work  is  the  lineal 
descendant  of  Lessing's  Laocoon,  so  far  as  the  spirit  and 
methods  of  its  criticisms  go.  And  however  we  may  be  com- 
pelled to  dissent  from  his  literary  judgments,  we  give  him  all 


i5 

honor  for  his  attempt  to  enunciate  some  of  the  principles 
which  underlie  the  production  of  a  literature.  In  his  view, 
literary  development  is  determined  chiefly  by  two  factors. 
The  first  of  these,  nationality,  acts  in  many  ways,  but  acts 
steadily  and  acts  powerfully.  To  understand  the  poets,  or 
dramatists  and  historians,  the  essayists  and  novelists,  we 
must  understand  the  nation  which  made  them  in  great  part 
what  they  are.  We  must  understand  the  nation  not  simply 
in  a  mere  fashion  of  external  history,  so  many  disasters,  so 
many  wars,  so  large  or  so  small  territory,  but  a  nation  as 
"  having  its  own  character,  both  mental  and  moral,  which 
manifests  itself  at  the  beginning  and  develops  from  epoch  to 
epoch,  preserving  the  same  fundamental  qualities  from  its 
origin  to  its  decline."  This  element  of  nationality  prescribes 
limitations  as  well  as  ensures  types.  It  would  have  been, 
owing  to  these  limitations,  as  impossible  for  any  Frenchman 
yet  known  to  history,  to  write  a  "  Paradise  Lost,"  as  for  any 
Englishman  to  have  written  "  Moliere's  Tartuffe."  But  within 
its  own  limits,  and  working  on  its  own  lines,  nationality  is  a 
factor  powerfully  moulding  literature.  The  mighty  growth 
of  letters  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth  is  not  indirectly,  but 
directly,  owing  to  the  consolidation  of  a  true  English  nation- 
ality. Before  a  Marlowe  and  Shakespeare,  a  Hooker  and  Bacon 
could  appear,  it  was  needful  not  only  that  Norman  and  Saxon 
elements  should  be  completely  fused,  but  also  that  the  inter- 
necine strifes  of  York  and  Lancaster  should  have  ended. 

And  still  further,  the  race-element  in  national  life,  which 
affects  so  profoundly  all  the  institutions  of  civilization,  has 
affected  all  the  literary  growths.  The  Trouvere  party  of  the 
north  of  France  differs  from  the  Troubadour  of  the  south,  as 
North  from  South.  Scandinavian  mythology  has  in  it  a  "form 
and  pressure,"  which  by  no  possibility  could  have  shown  them- 
selves in  myths  of  Aryan  or  Grecian  origin.  And  our  Eng- 
lish literature  is  Anglo-Saxon  all  the  way  through.     It  has, 


i6 

indeed,  absorbed  nutriment  and  borrowed  suggestions  from 
all  sources  in  turn.  But  this  has  been  assimilated  and 
digested  so  thoroughly  that  the  nationality  of  England  as 
Anglo-Saxon  appears  as  brilliantly  and  as  prominently  in  her 
men  of  letters  as  in  her  laws,  her  constitution  and  her  Parlia- 
ment. 

The  other  factor  which,  according  to  M.  Taine,  shapes  lit-* 
erature,  is  the  physical  condition  belonging  to  soil,  climate, 
scenery.  He  begins  his  history  with  a  sentence  which  is  the 
index  to  his  discussions  through  the  hundred  following  pages 
as  to  the  source  of  that  literature.  The  powerful  influence 
of  this  factor  is  seen  not  only  in  reflecting  the  life  of  the  sur- 
rounding nations,  but  far  more  deeply  as  nature  moulds  the 
men  under  her  skies,  on  her  soil,  beaten  by  her  tempests,  or 
tranquillized  by  her  beauties.  The  study  of  literature  thus 
becomes  a  study  of  national  as  well  as  political  or  religious 
environment. 

Attention  has"bf  late  been  called  to  Geography  as  a  true 
constituent  of  historical  study.  It  has  an  equal  place  in  liter- 
ary. If  our  poetry  and  prose  only  reach  their  highest  art  as 
man  —  his  hopes  and  plans,  his  passions  and  sorrows,  his  life 
here  brooded  over  by  so  solemn  mysteries  —  is  the  subject, 
still  when  nature  is  their  theme,  it  is  the  nature  amid  which 
her  disciples  have  been  reared  which  is  reflected  from  their 
pages.  Or  if,  as  in  the  case  of  Byron  and  Shelley,  it  is  the 
nature  of  an  adopted  land  sung  by  them  in  strains  of  so 
bewitching  beauty,  it  is  still  true  that  nature  has  moulded 
the  poet  with  her  plastic  hand. 

All  this,  however,  is  but  the  vestibule  to  the  philosophy  of 
literature.  It  pertains  more  to  form  than  to  the  soul.  We 
pass  on  through  it  to  behold  more  vital  and  more  precious 
elements.  Pausing  here,  we  could  not  possibly  explain  the 
noblest  work  of  our  men  of  letters.  The  inner  shrine  is  only 
reached  when  we  approach  the  moral  element.     Here,  indeed, 


17 

is  the  questio  vexata  of  all  art.  How  does  it  stand  related 
to  morals  ?  Is  it  wholly  independent  of  all  relation  to  the 
moral  ?  If  connected,  how  are  the  two  connected  ?  Is  the 
relation  one  of  outward  form  merely,  or  is  it  inner  and  vital  ? 
What  does  the  dictum  mean,  "Art  for  art's  sake"?  Is 
Heinrich  Heine's  cry  for  a  "rehabilitation  of  the  flesh,"  the 
demand  for  true  or  false  art  ?  Must  a  "  fleshly  school  of 
poetry"  be  given  the  same  legitimacy  of  position  accorded  to 
the  spiritual  ? 

The   voices    are   confused   which    come   to    us    in    reply. 
"Religion,"  said  Goethe,  "stands  in  the  same  relation  to  art 
as  any  other  of  the  higher  interests  in  life.     It  is  merely  to 
be  looked  upon  as  a  material  with  similar  claims  to  any  other 
vital  material.     Faith  and  want  of  faith  are  not  the  organs 
with  which  a  work  of   art  is  to  be  apprehended."     "Art," 
says  Professor  Seeley,  "  is  the  minister  to  joy;  all  art  is  play, 
or,  in   short,  exists  for  pleasure."     "All  works  of  art  which 
have   a  practical    purpose  are  not   properly  works   of   art." 
While  Sir   Philip   Sidney  claims  that  the  poet  is  the  true 
vates  or  seer,  defining  him  as  the  "  passionate  lover  of  that 
unspeakable  and  everlasting  beauty,  to  be  seen  by  the  eyes 
of  the  mind,  only  cleared  by  faith."    There  is  a  truth  and  also 
an  error  in  every  one  of  these  statements  of  the  relation  of 
art  to  morals.     Goethe  is  right  in  saying  that   "faith  and 
unfaith  are  not  the  organs  with  which  a  work  of  art  is  appre- 
hended," but  when  he  makes  of  religion  only  so  much   mate- 
rial for  artistic  use,  he  circumscribes  the  province  of  art  and 
shuts  out  its  main  relation.     Professor  Seeley  is  right  in  say- 
ing that  "  art  is  the  minister  to  joy,"  but  when  he  adds  that  "  all 
works  of  art  which  have  a  practical  purpose  are  not  properly 
works  of  art,"  he  tears  a  jewel  from  its  crown.     If  ever  a  lit- 
erary artist  wrought  with  a  high  purpose  in  view,  it  was 
George  Eliot.     We  may  not  accept  her  altruistic  theories  of 


life,  but  to  deny  to  her  fictions  their  claim  as  works  of  art  is 
denial  which  stultifies  itself.  And  when  Professor  Seeley 
says  that  "art  is  the  minister  to  joy,"  we  must  in  turn  ask 
what  is  meant  here  by  joy?  Can  the  highest  joy  ever  be 
secured  by  a  work  of  art  which  violates  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  morals  ?  Can  the  religious,  the  moral  nature  be 
counted  out,  in  the  estimate  of  what  most  truly  begets  joy? 
Can  joy  be  reduced  to  the  mere  satisfaction  of  aesthetic 
sensibilities,  the  eye  for  form  and  color,  the  ear  for  harmo- 
nious cadence,  the  intellect  pure  and  simple,  in  its  demand 
for  grandeur  or  beauty  ? 

It  has  been  the  fashion  in  certain  quarters  to  praise  Byron's 
Don  Juan  as  containing  the  noblest  strains  of  poetry,  as 
marking  the  highest  reach  of  his  poetic  genius.  We  must 
protest  against  such  a  judgment  not  only  as  unjust  to  Byron's 
true  fame,  but  as  a  violation  of  any  true  canon  regarding  the 
relation  of  art  to  morals.  This  poem  stabs  in  open  or  secret 
thrusts  with  such  an  air  of  cool  and  haughty  scorn  every 
principle  of  honor,  every  source  of  moral  purity,  every  sweet 
and  wholesome  view  of  life,  that  we  do  not  hesitate  to  say 
the  best  and  purest  souls  not  only  can  have  no  joy  in  it, 
but  must  fling  it  away  with  a  scorn  as  indignant  as  his  was 
bitter  and  cynical.  "What  is  it  to  us,"  Mr.  Swinburne 
asks,  "whether  Turner  had  coarse  orgies  with  the  trulls  of 
Wapping"?  And  in  the  same  way,  "What  are  the  stories 
of  Byron's  libertinism  to  us"?  We  answer:  When  Byron 
flaunts  his  libertinism  in  our  faces,  writes  it  out  in  verse  on 
which  he  has  lavished  prodigally  his  genius,  he  has  defied  the 
laws  of  all  true  art ;  first,  as  he  has  made  his  poetry  a  loath- 
ing and  not  a  joy  to  all  the  pure  in  heart ;  and  secondly, 
because  he  has  overlooked  that  which  is  the  secret  of  all  the 
highest  work  in  literary  art,  viz.  :  that  which  conforms  to  and 
does  not  shock  the  delight  of  the  best  in  eternal  purity. 
The  accusation  of  immorality  is  sometimes  unjust.     It  has 


19 

been  well  said  that  an  author's  "dominant  influence  on  char- 
acter may  be  potent  for  good,  but  on  certain  side  issues  he 
may  be  ethically  unsound."  The  view  of  Coleridge,  that 
Fielding,  in  his  novels,  by  depicting  the  evil  consequences  of 
immorality,  is  a  moral  writer,  is  thoroughly  defensible. 

We  do  not  say  it  is  the  business  of  the  poet  or  moralist  or 
essayist  to  turn  preacher,  and  make  his  poetry  or  his  novel  or 
essay   a   sermon.      He   need   not  even   have  it  as    his  dis- 
tinct aim  to  set  forth  principles  in  morals  or  religion.     He 
may  do  so  and  be  a  great  artist.     So  has  Victor  Hugo  writ- 
ten ;  so  have  Charles  Dickens,  and  Thackeray,  and  George 
Eliot ;  so,  above  all,  has  Wordsworth.     But  this  we  do  claim, 
and  make  an  appeal  to  all  the  greatest  works  of  literature  to 
justify  us.     Literature  never  strikes  a  true  note  in  art  when, 
judged   in   the    largest  sweep   of   its   tendency,  morality  is 
sacrificed.     Literature  never  strikes  her  deepest  notes  except 
as  the  great  eternal  laws  of  righteousness,  which  give  human 
life  its  deepest  significance,  which  make  man  so  noble  in  the 
scale  of  being,  and  invest  all  his  relations  with  so  undying 
pathos,  form  the   basis  of  the  thought  or  feeling,  or  at  least 
harmonize  with  them.     No  man  believes  that  Dante  wrote 
his  Inferno  to  teach  eschatology ;  that    Shakespeare  wrote 
his   Macbeth  to  unfold  the  awful  retributions  of  the  human 
conscience,  or  that  Goethe  wrote  his  Faust  to  give  us  a  view 
of  the  plan  of  redemption.     This  was  not  the  aim.     It  need 
not  have  been.     But  the  greatest  poems  always  must  embody 
this  material ;  not  strictly  because  it  is  such  material  as  may 
be  used,  but  such  as  must  be  used  if  the  deepest  aesthetic 
chords  in  the  human  soul  are  to  be  touched.     There  may  be  a 
religion  of  beauty,  but  that  must  be  the  beauty  of  holiness. 
When  Jeremy  Collier  laid  bare  the  hideous  immoralities  of 
the  drama  of  the  Restoration,  it  was  undoubtedly  Puritanism 
rallying  to  the  defense  of  moral  purity.     But   Puritanism  in 
this  was  no  less  the  friend  of  true  art  than  of  true  morals. 


20 

Wycherly  and  Congreve  had  done  their  worst  to  drag  down 
the  stage  not  only  into  an  abyss  of  sensuality,  but  into  a 
degradation  of  dramatic  art  from  which  in  more  than  two  cen- 
turies it  has  not  rallied. 

The  world  of  art  and  letters  owes  a  great  debt  to  John  Rus- 
kin  for  his  long  and  eloquent  advocacy  of  truth  as  the  basis 
of  all  high  art, —  truth  in  its  deepest  senses.  In  his  very 
suggestive  essay  on  the  "Deteriorative  Power  of  Conventional 
Art,"  he  has  written  out  his  creed  :  "And  thus  great  art  is 
nothing  else  than  the  type  of  strong  and  noble  life." 

It  is  only  when  a  true  philosophy  of  literature  is  held  by 
its  teachers  that  it  can  become  fruitful  of  the  highest  culture. 
Just  so  long  as  the  shallow  notions  of  literary  art  hold  their 
sway,  just  so  long  shall  we  be  open  to  the  charge  that  the  lit- 
erary spirit  is  essentially  effeminate,  lacks  that  breadth  and 
depth  which  every  disciplinary  study  should  have  in  itself. 
It  must  be  confessed  that  literary  men  have  given  the  world 
too  much  occasion  for  cavil.  The  literary  life  has  bred  too 
much  the  spirit  of  dilettanteism.  To  how  many  does  it  stand 
as  only  a  pretty  sort  of  occupation,  making  pretty  minds,  and 
blossoming  into  modern  aesthetes.  If  literature  cannot  make 
souls  strong  as  well  as  beautiful,  it  fails  in  high  degree,  and 
must  hold  a  small  place  in  wise  education.  But  if  once  its 
scope  be  grasped  in  a  true  philosophy,  the  reproach  is  swept 
away.  Once  place  literary  studies  on  this  broad  and  true 
foundation,  and  you  have  given  room  and  verge  for  teaching 
which  shall  take  hold  of  souls  at  points  which  will  affect 
them  deeply  and  strongly.  If  history  broadens  the  mind, 
and  philosophy  deepens  it,  the  study  of  our  English  literature 
in  its  true  scope  will  broaden,  deepen,  and  also  enrich  culture. 

The  most  important  question,  however,  as  to  the  scope  of 
English  literature  in  academic  culture  pertains,  of  course,  to 
its  value  as  a  mental  discipline.  What  training  does  it  give  ? 
What  faculties  of  mind   does   it  touch  and   invigorate  ?     In 


21 


general,  it  may  be  said  that  its  value  in  mental  training  is 
closely  analogous  to  that  secured  by  classical  study.  Not 
classical  study  in  its  entire  range,  as  a  study  of  grammar  as 
well  as  literature,  but  classical  study  in  its  wider  and  richer 
bearings,  as  a  study  of  the  highest  models  in  literary  spheres. 
Certain  it  is  that  if  the  classics  are  to  hold  their  lawful 
place,  they  must  be  more  and  more  studied  as  literature. 
Far  be  it  from  me  to  depreciate  classical  philology  as  a  disci- 
pline. It  is  a  curious  mental  perverseness  which,  while  mag- 
nifying the  importance  of  fact-studies  (and  these  are  confes- 
sedly great),  belittles  the  importance  of  classical  philology. 
The  dative  case  is  a  fact  —  as  much  a  fact  as  that  there 
was  a  Miocene  period  or  a  glacial  period,  or  that  the  optic 
nerves  are  smallest  in  the  moles,  largest  in  the  giraffe,  or  that 
in  the  rhinoceros  the  fasciculi  of  the  choanoid  muscles  have 
coalesced  into  two  masses,  or  that  the  gills  of  the  Tubicolous 
Annelides  are  placed  on  or  near  the  head,  generally  in  two 
lateral  tufts  — facts,  all  of  them,  and  important  to  scientific 
students.  But  as  a  fact,  the  dative  case  is  of  equal  impor- 
tance, to  say  the  least.  Homer  and  Plato  would  not  be 
Homer  and  Plato  without  it.  It  has  life  and  power  in  their 
hands,  and  is  as  much  an  object  of  knowledge  as  anything  in 
biology  or  geology.  But  while  demanding  all  this  for  classi- 
cal philology,  still  it  is  true  that  classical  study  only  reaches 
its  true  and  full  proportions  when  it  passes  onward  and  up- 
ward from  the  regions  of  philology  into  those  of  literature. 
The  moment  this  is  done,  then  Classical  literature  and  Eng- 
lish literature  occupy  a  common  ground  as  discipline.  The 
student  of  ^Eschlyus  and  Euripides  and  Theocritus  will  be 
all  the  better  prepared  for  the  study  of  Macbeth  and  Samson 
Agonistes  and  the  poetry  of  Tennyson. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  in  the  history  of  Oxford  that  when 
its  professorship  of  poetry  was  founded,  it  was  stated  in  the 
statutes  founding  it,  that  "  the  study  of  poetry  tended  to  the 


22 

improvement  of  the  chief  sciences  there."  This  view  would 
make  the  study  of  English  literature  an  auxiliary  force  to  other 
discipline,  having  no  distinct  value  of  its  own.  We  need  not, 
however,  discount  the  study  on  this  ground.  Auxiliaries  are 
no  mean  agents.  Without  these,  principals  would  sometimes 
be  at  sore  disadvantage  in  the  struggle  of  life.  In  mental  dis- 
cipline some  studies  are  by  turns  each  auxiliary  and  principal. 
Algebra  doubtless  has  great  value  as  independent  discipline. 
To  be  able  to  solve  quadratics  of  two  unknown  quantities  may 
help  a  man  in  the  solution  of  life's  great  equation,  in  which, 
alas  !  more  than  two  unknown  quantities  are  to  be  found. 
But  when  Algebra  contributes  its  indispensable  services  to  the 
study  of  Physics  or  Astronomy,  it  becomes  an  auxiliary,  pos- 
sibly of  more  moment  than  as  principal.  So  with  English 
literature.  It  is  by  turns  auxiliary  and  principal.  It  has 
related  and  it  has  individual  value  as  mental  discipline. 

Goldwin  Smith  has  called  attention  to  an  important  dis- 
tinction between  the  "  intrinsic  value  of  studies  and  their  edu- 
cational value."  The  study  of  Sanscrit,  or  Romance  Philol- 
ogy, has  intrinsic  value.  All  knowledge  is  of  worth.  But  to 
insist  that  the  educational  value  of  Sanscrit,  or  Romance  Phil- 
ology, has  equal  disciplinary  value  with  other  branches,  shows 
ignorance  of  the  human  mind  and  of  an  educational  expe- 
rience which  centuries  have  contributed  to  form.  The  dif- 
ference between  intrinsic  and  educational  value  for  any  study 
is  palpable  and  essential.  That  alone  has  educational  value 
which  in  the  shortest  time  and  by  the  most  direct  operation 
can  arouse  and  discipline  the  mental  faculties.  "  I  hate  by- 
roads in  education,"  said  Dr.  Johnson  ;  and  we  are  only  mak- 
ing by-roads  in  education  when  we  put  studies  of  distinctively, 
if  not  exclusively  intrinsic  value,  side  by  side  with  those  which 
have  distinctively  educational  value,  and  perforce  also  the  in- 
trinsic. What  is  claimed  for  English  literature  as  a  study  is, 
that  while  having  an  intrinsic  value,  it  has  an  influential  and 


distinct  educational  value.  If  "  to  be  available  for  the  higher 
education,"  as  Goldwin  Smith  claims,  "a  subject  must  be 
traversed  by  principles  and  capable  of  method  ;  .  .  .  must 
be  either  a  science  or  a  philosophy,  not  a  mere  mass  of  facts, 
without  principle  or  law,"  it  has  been  already  shown  that  the 
study  of  English  literature  is  "  traversed  by  principles  and 
capable  of  method." 

We  cannot  rest  the  case,  however,  on  mere  generalities. 
Pushing  the  inquiry  into  more  detail,  let   us  ascertain  just 
what  elements  of  a  liberal  education  will  be  secured  by  this 
study  of   our  literature  —  a   true    scope   and  method    being 
assumed  for  it.     But  what  is  a  liberal  education  ?     John  Mil- 
ton, in  his  tract   on  Education,  gives  answer  two  centuries 
ago  :  "I  call,  therefore,  a  complete  and  generous  education, 
that  which  fits  a  man   to  perform  justly,  skillfully  and  mag- 
nanimously all  the  offices,  both  private  and  public,  of  peace 
and  war."     This  noble   answer  is,  however,  somewhat   too 
general   for   the   purposes  of   the  present   discussion.     Mr. 
Huxley  has  given  a  definition  of  liberal  education  which  is 
more  specific  :    "That  man,  I  think,  has  had  a  liberal  educa- 
tion who  has  been  so  trained  in  youth  that  his  body  is  the 
ready  servant  of  his  will,  and  does  with  ease  and  pleasure  all 
the  work  that  as  a  mechanism  it  is  capable  of ;  whose  intellect 
is    a   clear,    cold  logic    engine   with    all   its  parts  of   equal 
strength  and    in  smooth  working  order,  ready  like  a  steam 
engine  to  be  turned  to  any  kind  of  work,  and  spin  the  gossa- 
mers as  well  as  forge  the  anchors  of  the  mind  ;  whose  mind 
is  stored  with  a  knowledge  of   the  great  and   fundamental 
truths  of  nature  and  of  the  laws  of  her  operations  ;  one  who, 
no  stunted  ascetic,  is  full  of  life  and  of  fire,  but  whose  passions 
are  trained  to  come  to  heel  by  a  vigorous  will,  the  servant 
of  a  tender  conscience ;  who  has  learned  to  love  all  beauty, 
whether  of  nature  or  of  art,  to  hate  all  vileness,  and  to  respect 
others  as  himself." 


24 

Mr.  Huxley's  definition  of  a  liberal  education,  containing 
as  it  does  the  saving  clause  that  its  possessor  must  "  have 
learned  to  love  all  beauty,  whether  of  nature  or  of  art,"  is 
such  as  to  make  literary  study  imperative  on  all  liberally  edu- 
cated men.  The  intellect  will  be  more  than  a  "  clear,  cold 
logic  engine,"  of  course,  for  any  man  who  has  "  learned  to 
love  all  beauty."  That  it  may  be  more,  is  the  object  in 
studying  our  literature.  There  is,  in  fact,  a  general  knowledge 
of  what  our  great  writers  are,  which  must  be  pre-supposed  in 
anything  which  lays  claim  to  the  august  title  of  a  liberal  edu- 
cation. We  may  not  call  him  liberally  educated  who  is  igno- 
rant wholly  of  the  general  principles  of  geological,  or  biological, 
or  astronomical  science.  To  do  so  is  an  educational  heresy. 
No  men  insist  on  such  knowledge  more  than  the  friends  of 
literary  studies.  But  in  turn  they  ask,  Does  not  educational 
orthodoxy  demand  that  the  liberally  educated  man  know 
something  of  Chaucer  as  well  as  of  the  plesiosaurus  and 
megalosaurus  ;  something  of  Addison  and  Swift  as  well  as 
of  protoplasm  ;  of  Shakespeare  as  well  as  of  the  nebular 
hypothesis  ?  Yea,  verily,  is  the  response ;  but  the  knowledge 
of  these  authors  is  what  students  may  pick  up  for  themselves, 
whereas  they  must  have  teachers  and  training  in  geology, 
and  biology,  and  astronomy. 

But  literary  training  is  not  a  thing  which  a  man  can  pick 
up  for  himself,  if  he  is  to  know  it  in  any  deep  and  truthful 
way.  He  can  pick  up  geology  or  biology  just  as  well  by 
himself.  The  fact  that  the  literature  is  in  his  vernacular 
does  not  by  any  means  put  him  in  possession  of  what  the 
study  can  do  for  him.  It  may  facilitate,  but  it  cannot  super- 
sede, the  necessity  for  some  higher  training.  What  makes 
Coleridge  one  of  the  best  guides  to  the  study  of  Shakespeare 
is  the  fact  that  he  had,  along  with  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
Greek  tragedy,  a  knowledge  of  philosophy  as  well.  Literary 
training  must  consist  in   that  interpretation  of  authors  such 


25 

as  Hudson  gives  to  Shakespeare,  or  Myers  to  Wordsworth,  or 
Lowell  to  Chaucer  and  Spenser,  and  trained  in  which  the 
student  is  equipped  for  true  and  full  appreciation  of  all  forms 
of  literary  work.  Furthermore  it  may  be  said  that  when, 
in  the  course  of  education,  the  pursuit  of  any  branch  of 
learning,  be  it  classics,  or  mathematics,  or  science,  wakes 
up  or  stimulates  the  powers,  it  has  very  high  educational 
value.  ^Educational  processes  are  barren  if  reduced  to  mere 
class-room  drill.  Drill  is  good.  But  if  all  the  results  of 
teaching  are  drill,  then  there  is  failure  in  the  higher 
spheres  of  training,  even  if  the  teacher  does  not  incur  justly 
the  reproach  of  John  Milton,  as  making  his  efforts  at 
instruction  an  "asinine  feast  of  sow,  thistles  and  bram- 
bles." Now  there  is  no  study  more  directly  fitted  to  wake 
up  the  mind  of  a  pupil,  give  it  enthusiasm  and  push,  than 
the  study  of  our  great  authors.  To  come  in  contact  with 
their  minds,  to  be  led  under  their  mighty  spell,  is  to  have 
the  mental  faculties  so  directly  called  to  and  called  upon, 
that  mental  awaking,  if  it  have  not  already  come,  is  apt  to 
come  ;  and  it  may  be  said  that  until  some  study  has  accom- 
plished this  mental  wakening,  education  has  hardly  begun 
its  work. 

In  that  lecture  of  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  on  Literature  and 
Science,  which  he  gave  a  few  years  since,  he  made  the  claim 
for  literature  that  it  alone  satisfies  the  "  end  of  relating  what 
we  have  learned  and  known,  to  the  sense  we  have  in  us  for 
conduct,  to  the  sense  which  we  have  in  us  for  beauty,"  and 
that  "  education  lays  hold  upon  us,  in  fact,  by  satisfying  this 
demand."  Mr.  Huxley's  definition  of  a  liberal  education 
includes  in  it  what  will  minister  to  this  education  of  charac- 
ter. His  liberally  educated  man  must  be  one  "whose  pas- 
sions are  trained  to  come  to  heel  by  a  vigorous  will,  the  ser- 
vant of  a  tender  conscience ;   who  has   learned  to   love  all 


26 

beauty,  whether  of  nature  or  of  art,  to  hate  all  vileness,  and 
to  respect  others  as  himself."  Of  course  in  reaching  so 
broad  a  moral  education  as  this,  a  distinctly  moral,  if  not 
Christian,  teaching  must  be  supplied.  But  what  a  minis- 
ter to  this  high  end  the  study  of  literature  may  become ! 
Lowell  has  said  of  Spenser :  "  No  man  can  read  the  Fairy 
Queen  and  be  anything  but  the  better  for  it."  It  palpitates 
from  its  beginning  with  the  Red  Cross  Knight  to  its  clese  with 
Sir  Calidore  with  so  singular  and  inspiring  loftiness  of  spirit- 
ual aim.  To  know  John  Milton  in  his  prose  or  his  poetry  is  to 
know  a  great  soul  who  appeals  in  us  to  whatever  is  capable  of 
heroic  mould  or  lofty  emotion.  I  believe  that  Thackeray  has 
accomplished  unmeasured  good  for  the  young,  by  his  just  and 
noble  scorn  for  all  that  is  false  and  factitious  in  high  places  ; 
that  he  has  educated  powerfully  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong 
conduct  in  his  multiplying  readers.  And  the  time  has  hardly 
yet  come  for  estimating  what  Wordsworth  has  done  for  those 
who  have  learned  to  love  him,  in  the  nobler  ideals  to  which 
he  has  lifted  life.  And  the  same  is  true  of  Robert  Brown- 
ing. These,  and  such  as  these,  cannot  be  studied  without 
having  bright,  fresh  young  minds  influenced  by  them  and 
their  teachings.  "The  sense  in  us  for  conduct,"  to  borrow 
Mr.  Arnold's  phrase,  responds  to  their  many-toned  call,  and 
the  soul  rises  to  loftier  and  truer  conceptions  of  life  and  duty. 
But  there  are  special  results  accomplished  by  this  study  of 
our  literature  of  hardly  less  moment.  Is  imagination  a  fac- 
ulty worth  cultivating  ?  It  would  seem  sometimes  as  if  edu- 
cators who  speak  of  intellect  as  a  "clear,  cold  logic  engine," 
did  not  think  so.  But  when  that  chapter  in  the  biography  of 
Louis  Agassiz  is  read  which  describes  that  marvellous  recon- 
struction of  a  past  glacial  period  so  that  you  can  almost  see 
Europe  under  the  mighty  frozen  mass,  we  are  tempted  to  ask, 
Is  not  this  brilliant  scientific  imagination,  giving  body  to  the 
strenuous  scientific  reasoning  and  untiring  scientific  research, 


27 

a  great  possession  ?  Do  we  read  the  pages  of  Macaulay,  or 
our  own  Motley,  and  their  pictures  of  a  Massacre  of  Glen- 
coe,  or  a  Siege  of  Leyden,  without  feeling  that  there  is  a 
historic  imagination  which  can  record  the  past  movements 
of  men,  as  Agassiz  has  of  nature  ?  And  what  writers  can  so 
educate  this  imaginative  power  as  our  great  poets  ?  Is  this 
not  the  function  of  great  poets,  aye,  of  all  the  literature  of 
imagination  ? 

There  is  an  education  of  the  taste  which  comes  from  this 
study,  and  gained  nowhere  else.  I  dislike  the  term  "  good 
taste"  as  applied  to  that  fine  appreciation  of  the  best  in  art. 
It  seems  weak,  almost  inane,  as  designating  a  quality  so  high. 
It  is  associated  with  an  effeminate  quality  in  the  minds  of 
some.  Strength  is  too  often  confounded  with  coarseness  and 
vulgarity.  But  the  evils  of  this  are  deplorable.  Bad  taste 
has  vulgarized  religion.  In  preaching  it  has  degraded  the 
high  office  of  the  Christian  Teacher  into  shrieking  dervishes, 
who  beat  the  air  with  new  sensational  devices  every  Sunday. 
It  is  a  low  and  vulgar  taste  which  prefers  a  cheap  stump 
oratory  to  calm  and  well-considered  discourse.  The  Blatant 
Beast  is  not  dead  yet.  I  fear  he  has  somewhat  free  range 
in  America,  going  about  Sundays  as  well  as  week-days, 
seeking  whom  he  may  devour.  How  much  will  the  taste 
of  the  public  have  to  be  educated  before  a  noble  simplic- 
ity, a  severe  truthfulness  of  style,  can  have  its  own  due 
recognition  ?  It  is  more  than  a  mere  question  of  taste.  It 
trenches  on  moral  relations.  And  there  is  an  immoral  ele- 
ment in  the  sneers  at  good  taste.  If  our  public  men  had 
more  of  this,  if  the  people  wanted  more  of  this,  we  should 
have  better  politics,  as  well  as  better  speeches.  This  study 
of  literature  is  also  imperatively  needed  in  order  to  faithful 
discipline  of  students  in  the  high  and  essential  art  of  expres- 
sion. The  lack  in  masters  of  English  style  deserves  serious 
thought  at  the  hands  of  our  educators.     That  the  art  of  writ- 


28 

ing  English  prose  in  its  racy,  idiomatic  diction,  almost  jus- 
tifying Coleridge's  view  that  it  is  a  more  wonderful  thing 
than  poetry,  is  not  yet  a  lost  art,  the  prose  of  Newman  and 
Martineau  abroad,  of  Hawthorne  at  home,  makes  sufficiently 
clear.  And  yet  how  few  attain  their  felicity  and  power ! 
How  shall  the  want  be  met  ? 

When  Dr.  Johnson  said,  "  Whoever  wishes  to  attain  an 
English  style  familiar  but  not  coarse,  elegant  but  not  osten- 
tatious, must  give  his  days  and  nights  to  the  volumes  of 
Addison,"  he  only  illustrated  a  principle  fundamental  in  the 
art  of  style.  The  study  of  models  here  is  as  essential  as  the 
study  of  models  in  the  sister  arts  of  sculpture  or  painting. 
The  geniuses  who  are  independent  of  models  are  few  and  far 
between,  exceptions  or  anomalies  who  only  prove  the  rule. 
An  argument  for  our  old-time  classical  training  of  invincible 
force  is  to  be  drawn  from  its  close  relation  to  all  mastery  of  the 
best  English  style.  Any  teacher  who  is  accustomed  to  super- 
vise the  writing  of  students  can  distinguish  at  a  glance  those 
who  have  been  classically  trained  and  who  have  caught  from 
ancient  models  something  of  their  matchless  art,  from  those 
whose  training  has  been  shut  up  to  the  style  of  text-books,  or 
the  newspaper,  or  chance  acquaintance  with  stray  English 
authors.  We  shall  have  more  masters  in  the  high  art  of  Eng- 
lish style  when  we  have  learned  how  to  study  the  great  mas- 
ters—  first  Homer,  and  Thucydides  and  Cicero,  and  then 
Shakespeare,  and  Gibbon  and  Burke  —  as  models;  and  this 
end  alone  for  the  study  of  English  literature  would  vindicate 
its  claims  for  a  front  rank  in  all  courses  of  mental  training. 

As  to  method,  there  is  little  need  for  lengthened  discussion. 
The  scope  determines  the  method  for  the  study.  The  too 
free  use  of  so-called  manuals  or  histories  of  English  literature 
has  had  only  the  effect  of  retarding  the  true  interests  of  liter- 
ary study.     A  good  dictionary  is   more  interesting,  and  far 


29 

more  profitable  reading.  They  are  not  much  more  help  to 
the  study  of  good  letters  than  a  table  of  logarithms.  Cram- 
ming a  student's  memory  with  facts  about  an  author,  the  date 
of  his  birth  and  death,  the  place  of  his  education,  the  dates  of 
his  successive  publications,  who  printed  them,  and  how  many 
editions  were  sold,  the  quarrels  with  his  fellow-craftsmen, 
if  he  happened  to  have  any,  how  he  was  praised  by  his  con- 
temporaries, general  estimates  of  what  and  how  he  wrote, — 
all  this,  whatever  it  be,  is  not  properly  a  study  of  literature. 
It  is  literature  skeletonized,  and  it  is  only  as  the  student  is 
brought  in  direct  contact  with  the  complex  and  wonderful 
life  that  pervades  literature,  that  its  study  becomes  vital  and 
fruitful.  So  that  the  cardinal  principle  of  a  true  method  is 
that  the  student  be  brought  into  direct  contact  with  the 
authors  themselves. 

At  this  point,  however,  it  is  of  absolute  necessity  that  the 
"interpreter"  of  literature  in  the  teacher  should  appear. 
For,  as  Professor  Dowden  has  lately  said,  "  Every  great  wri- 
ter has  his  secret,  and  there  are  some  writers  who  seem  to 
cherish  their  secret  and  constantly  to  elude  us,  just  at  the 
moment  of  capture,  and  these  perhaps  are  the  most  fascina- 
ting of  all,  endlessly  to  be  pursued."  The  first  close  and 
intelligent  reading  of  Hamlet  discloses  to  the  student  in  out- 
line a  vast  monument  of  literary  art.  When  for  the  twentieth 
time  he  has  traversed  the  great  tragedy,  he  has  gained  more 
full  and  more  distinct  impressions  of  the  sources  of  its  power. 
And  if  he  will  only  persevere  and  pursue  the  secret  end- 
lessly, though  he  can  never  hope  to  pluck  out  the  heart  of  its 
mystery,  he  may  hope  at  last  to  have  some  approximate  con- 
ception of  what  is  the  "hiding  of  its  power."  The  same 
thing  is  true  of  John  Milton's  Paradise  Lost.  Mr.  Stop- 
ford  Brooke's  study  of  this  poem  suggests  the  query 
whether,  after  two  centuries,  Milton's  art  is  yet  fully  under- 


;o 


stood  or  appreciated.  And  just  because  the  professional 
interpreters  of  literature,  the  critics,  have  so  often  been  the 
"  police  and  magistracy  "  of  the  literary  domain,  rather  than 
in  any  just  sense  interpreters  of  its  secret,  is  the  interpreter 
demanded. 

Things  in  this  sphere  are  altogether  more  hopeful  now,  but 
still  he  who  teaches  literature  must  bend   all  his  powers  to 
this  great  end,  and  interpret  authors  to  his  classes.     Here  he 
finds  his  great  function.     It  will  task  high  powers.     He  must 
not  only  "feel  widely,  but  also  feel  exquisitely"  the  subtler 
elements  of  all  authorship.     He  must  never  mistake  "  fastid- 
iousness "  for  accuracy,  and  truth  of  perception.     "  He  who 
approaches  his  author  as   a   whole,  bearing   upon  life  as  a 
whole,  is  himself  alive  at  the  greatest  possible  number  of 
points,  will  be  the  best  and  truest  interpreter."     And  if  this 
great  study  thus   pursued  attains  its  end,  the  result  will  be 
that  generous  youth  will  go  from  these  seats  of  learning  with 
the  noblest  traits  wakened  and  disciplined,  brought  under  the 
power  of  great  masters  in  all  fields  of  literary  achievement, 
with  sources  of  high   impulse  and  ideals  of  manly  life,  which 
no  time  can   destroy,  no  worldliness  chill  or  dry  up,  no  hard 
realities  in  after  struggles  choke  or  strangle. 

For  one  I  count  it  a  great  thing  in  my  life  to  have  been 
trained  in  an  institution  which  has  always  shown  fostering 
care  of  high  literary  pursuits.  I  look  back  to-day  through 
many  years  of  active  life  to  the  old  college  days,  grateful 
that  I  was  so  trained  here  as  to  turn  to  literature  for  help 
and  stimulus  at  a  thousand  turns  in  life.  Brown  University 
has  always  known  that  finer  literary  atmosphere  in  which  a 
sweet  and  gracious  culture  flourishes.  Her  traditions  are  all 
of  them  strongly  charged  with  this  spirit.  From  the  time  of 
Professor  Goddard  — and  I  know  not  how  much  earlier— but 
from  the  time  of  Professor  Goddard,  in  whom  were  blended 


3i 

all  the  elements  of  highest  English  culture,  to  the  present,  it 
has  lived  and  thrived.  The  mantle  of  Professor  Goddard 
descended  on  one  who,  though  for  many  years  retired  from 
active  connection  with  the  college,  still  is  present  to  receive 
the  gratulations  of  pupils  who  owe  to  him  the  blessing  of  a 
true  literary  culture,  and  whose  distinction,  among  others,  it 
is  to  have  trained  for  the  service  of  the  college  two  men  of 
so  exceptional  a  literary  grace  and  power  as  Professors  Dunn 
and  Diman. 


Fello  zv -A  In  m  n  i : 

If  to-day  I  have  magnified  the  claims  of  literary  studies,  it 
has  been  from  the  deep  conviction  that  we  are  in  danger  of  a 
narrow,  one-sided  culture,  running  out  into  a  specialism  which 
can  never,  from  its  limitations,  meet  the  highest  ideal  in  edu- 
cation, and  also  from  a  conviction  equally  strong  that  the  full 
resources  in  English  literature  as  a  branch  of  culture  have  not 
yet  been  developed.  I  believe  with  Professor  Dovvden,  that 
"  if  our  study  does  not  directly  or  indirectly  enrich  the  life  of 
man,  it  is  but  a  drawing  of  vanity  with  cart-ropes,  a  weari- 
ness to  the  flesh,  or  at  best  a  busy  idleness."  But  just  as 
fully  do  I  believe  that  more  and  deeper  study  of  all  great 
authors  will  "  enrich  life  at  many  points,  morally  as  well  as 
aesthetically  ;"  will  be  a  recognition  of  the  truth  that  "man 
does  not  live  by  bread  alone  ; "  will  be  a  protest  against  the 
inanities,  the  sensualities,  the  sordid  materialism  which  rob 
human  life  of  all  its  high  meanings  and  possibilities ;  a  pro- 
test heard,  perhaps,  where  pulpits  are  deemed  effete,  and 
Bibles  classed  with  hoary  superstitions,  but  a  protest  which 
will  be  the  noblest  tribute  which  literary  culture  can  pay  to 
that  supreme  thing,  the  human  soul.  And  therefore,  in  no 
strained  nor  formal  apostrophe,  I  may  hail  the  great  masters 


32 


in  the  literature  of  the  past  as  fellow-workmen  in  the  lifting 
up  of  humanity  to  its  highest  levels. 


•Then,  in  such  hour  of  need 
Of  your  fainting,  dispirited  race, 
Ye  like  angels  appear, 
Radiant  with  ardor  divine. 
Beacons  of  hope  ye  appear  ! 
Languor  is  not  in  your  heart, 
Weakness  is  not  in  your  word, 
Weariness  not  on  your  brow. 
Ye  alight  in  our  van  !  at  your  voice 
Panic,  despair  flee  away. 
Ye  move  through.the  ranks,  recall 
The  stragglers,  refresh  the  outworn, 
Praise,  reinspire  the  brave. 
Order,  courage  return, 
Eyes  rekindling  and  prayers 
Follow  your  steps  as  ye  go. 
Ye  fill  up  the  gaps  in  our  files, 
Strengthen  the  wavering  line, 
Stablish,  continue  our  march 
On,  to  the  bound  of  the  waste, 
On,  to  the  City  of  God." 


PAMPHLET  BINDER 


Manufa 


dby 


faclure 
GAYLORD  BROS 


Syr 


N.  Y. 


Stockton,  Calif. 


PR33.M98 

The  study  of  English  literature  :  its 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00081   2166 


